To be tired of the phrase "just five to ten minutes"

[thepastisanothercountry]

DS's drum teacher - just 5 to 10 minutes practise morning and evening please"

DS's class teacher : "please make sure they read at least five to ten minutes before school in the morning" "spend five to ten minutes on spellings every day" "make sure they practise times tables for five to ten minutes every day"

DS's Occupational therapist (he's dyspraxic) " If he could just do those exercises a couple of times a day for five to ten minutes that would be great.

DS's music teacher "Hi I've sent DS home with the songs for next weeks assemmbly if he could just practise verses 2 and 3 for 5 to 10 minutes a day that would be great"

I know they're all being helpful and they are lovely people who all try to support DS the phrase is meant to take the pressure off I know all these things need doing but all these "five to ten minutes" are adding up to rather a lot of minutes

I know its standard but I sometimes feel like if I hear the phrase one more time I'll scream!

YANBU OP.
It's a symptom of our productivity obsessed culture, you see '5-10 mins' recommended for everything.

Apart from them adding up... it's never possible to do all of these things in 'only' 5-10 mins.
The physical therapy maybe he could do it while watching TV. But music is impossible, warm-up alone would take a couple of minutes.You can't do any meaningful practuce in 3 minutes! Not to mention unpacking and packing the instrument (if it's just a piano then none of this ofc).

I'm often MORE tired by the pile-on of 'little' jobs than a few big ones...

An hour dedicated practice or whatever will do more good than this nonesne

I remember this problem. And now have issues like this with managers at work. Adding things which "just" need 10 minutes to check every day. On top of all the other things that "just" need 10 minutes a day already and I soon run out of time. And they normally need more than 10 minutes to set up/load/update/save...
Can you priorities in the things you think he needs more practice in and do those every day?
If they're happy with 5 minutes every day then 10 minutes every couple of days, 15 every third is enough surely? For things like the songs at least? Spread it out, might make it all easier to schedule.
And just smile and nod when they tell you to do something everyday.

The thing is though all of those things do need regular practise for the improvement to come.

I get your frustration but the key is getting into a good routine with it all. DS has loads of different therapy he has to do during the day so we have got ourselves into a clear routine to let it happen because it’s in his best interests.

It’s hard work but it’s needed

I think as a kid I was much better at getting into these kind of routines because I didn’t really have much else to do. Certainly I didn’t have to expend much brain energy on daily tasks the way I do now. Is your son old enough to do these fairly independently? I would have enjoyed a schedule to for this as a kid (but maybe that was just me).

As an adult I find it very difficult to get into these kinds of food habits and routines but I suppose I have lit note small daily chores.